Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Author: Carrie Kahn
Moving from the arthouse to the multiplex with grace, ease, and only the occasional eye roll. Proud member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle.
Lee’s tonally uneven picture diminishes impact of relevant, astonishing true story
Colorado Springs detective Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) infiltrates the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
Released just two days before the one year anniversary of the deadly Charlottesville, VA white nationalist rally and this Sunday’s “Unite the Right” white nationalist DC march, and coming on the heels of the recent Proud Boys/Patriot Prayer “Western chauvinist” gatherings in Portland and Berkeley, director Spike Lee’s polemical new film BlacKkKlansman is both relevant and disheartening in the way it reveals how little has changed in the 40+ years since the based-on-a-true story takes place. That the film’s message remains topical and necessary is indisputable; that it’s executed so poorly, then, is a disappointment.
The 38th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is going strong; it entered its second week today, and we’ve got five more spotlights for you (you can find our first round of coverage here). Below we profile four more feature films and one documentary. Complete programming and ticket information can be found here; now get out there and see some films before the Festival ends on August 5th!
8th grader Kayla (Elsie Fisher) spends much of her free time on her smart phone.
Regular readers of Spinning Platters may have noticed that I’m partial to coming of age films; The Way, Way Back is a personal favorite, and I had both The Edge of Seventeen and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl on my Top 10 lists for their respective years. But all three of those have now been pushed aside in favor of a new genre champion: writer/director Bo Burnham’s feature debut Eighth Grade sets a new standard for all future coming of age pictures. Filmmakers may as well concede now, because no other film will ever come close to measuring up to this exquisite masterpiece.
Local boys make good in masterful look at their changing city
Longtime Oakland friends Collin (Daveed Diggs, l.) and Miles (Rafael Casal) assess their changing city.
Berkeley High grads and old friends Daveed Diggs (of Broadway’s Hamilton fame) and local slam poet and artist Rafael Casal join Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station; Black Panther) and Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You) in bringing Oakland to the big screen, in a timely and powerful picture that should be required viewing not only for all Bay Area residents, but also for those who want to understand the ever shifting cultural and economic landscape of a Bay Area in flux. Diggs and Casal both wrote and star in Blindspotting, under the direction of their TV and short film director friend Carlos López Estrada, who makes his extraordinary feature film debut here, and was rewarded with a Sundance Grand Jury Prize nomination for his efforts.
The 38th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, showcasing over 65 films from more than twenty countries, opens this Thursday, July 19th, and runs for two and a half weeks, concluding on Sunday, Aug. 5th. Films will be shown at venues in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Albany, Oakland, and San Rafael, so there is plenty of time and opportunity to see a lot of quality films. Below we spotlight five Festival movies that you may want to check out. Complete schedule, tickets, and more information are available here. And be sure and follow Spinning Platters for more coverage during the Festival!
Covert operative Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro) and CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) discuss strategy.
The makers of Sicario: Day of the Soldado probably couldn’t have predicted just how relevant their film would be today back when it was greenlit to follow its 2015 precursor Sicario. But those hoping for a searing dramatization of the inner workings of the U.S./Mexico border patrol and its operators will be sorely disappointed with this sequel, which offers plenty of gore and violence, but little in the way of prescient or urgent social commentary.
Old-fashioned fun is the real mark in latest Ocean’s film
Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock, l.) assembles a crack team of eight (from l., Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, and Helena Bohman Carter) to plan a foolproof heist.
You don’t need to have seen the previous three Ocean’s movies (that would be 11, 12, and 13 for the uninitiated) to enjoy Ocean’s 8, the female-helmed companion film that opens today; it stands alone as a highly enjoyable, old-fashioned heist movie. But those who are loyal fans of the original series will be rewarded with a few nods to the previous films, as well as a couple of cameos that I won’t reveal here, but which will no doubt please the films’ devotees. Breezy and fun, writer/director Gary Ross’s entry into the Ocean’s universe retains the brisk confidence of the original pictures, while providing a welcome freshness by changing the stories’ traditional casting.
Richard (Sam Claflin) and Tami (Shailene Woodley) are adrift in the Pacific after a fierce hurricane throws them off course.
Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur is no stranger to the survival story genre; he directed 2015’s mountain-expedition-gone-bad thriller Everest, and 2012’s Icelandic-language The Deep, about a fisherman who capsizes before being rescued after six days in the water. That film probably planted the seed for Kormákur to take on Adrift, the film adaptation of Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea, Tami Oldham Ashcroft and Susea McGearhart’s 2002 book about the dire consequences of Hurricane Raymond on a sailing adventure undertaken by Tami and her fiancé Richard Sharp in 1983. Kormákur, working from a screenplay by twin brothers Aaron and Jordan Kandell (Moana) and David Branson Smith (Ingrid Goes West), has succeeded in creating a nerve-wracking, what-would-you-do, visceral sea faring adventure that rises to the top of a fairly crowded field.
Great company, solid laughs make this Club worth joining
Longtime friends Diane (Diane Keaton, l.), Sharon (Candice Bergen), Vivian (Jane Fonda) and Carol (Mary Steenburgen) talk about books and more in their book club.
Writer/director Bill Holderman, whose age isn’t listed on IMDB, but who looks to be in his late 40s or so, must be particularly close to his grandparents. His first screenplay, 2015’s A Walk in the Woodsconcerned two older men reconnecting on an ill-advised hiking trip, and now his newest screenplay — and his first directorial attempt — is about four senior citizen women on a similar journey of self-discovery. The women’s catalyst for change isn’t the Appalachian Trail, however; it’s E.L. James’s infamously titillating bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey. Co-written by actress and first time screenwriter Erin Simms, Book Club takes a fun but lightweight idea and makes it a success because of the quartet of legendary and always watchable actresses who bring the story to life.
Wrap up: 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival
The 61st San Francisco International Film Festival ended last Tuesday, but many of its offerings will find their way to your neighborhood cinema in the near future. We conclude our coverage of this year’s Fest by taking a look at four of the Fest’s films that you may want to keep your eye out for in the coming months (our previous coverage posts can be found here, here, and here). And if you’re curious to see which Fest films took home awards this year, you can see all the winners here. In the meantime, we’ll see you next year for SFFILM #62!
1.) Sorry to Bother You (USA 2018, 107 min. Centerpiece)
Detroit (Tessa Thompson) and Cassius (Lakeith Stanfield) join with striking workers at their telemarketing firm in Oakland.
Oakland rapper and artist Boots Riley got the hometown reception from the Festival this year, as his debut feature film was given a first-of-its kind, dual-venue Bay Area premiere at two of the Bay Area’s most iconic and beloved theaters: Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater and San Francisco’s Castro Theater. The movie had previously premiered at Sundance, where it garnered a Grand Jury prize nomination, but its Bay Area premiere definitely felt more special. Riley’s film centers on Cassius (Lakeith Stanfield, Get Out), a new employee at a telemarketing company in downtown Oakland (exteriors were shot around Kaiser’s Franklin Street building) whose rise up the corporate ladder doesn’t come without cost, to himself, his girlfriend (Tessa Thompson), and his friends, colleagues, and community. While inarguably entertaining, Riley’s film has a definite first attempt feel: elements of political satire, social criticism, surrealist comedy, outrageous sci-fi, and sweet romance often overlap to an extreme, coming dangerously close to burying the picture beneath its own everything-but-the kitchen-sink weight. Comedically deft performances from Stanfield and Armie Hammer, as a villainous corporate head, though, are appealing enough to make the flaws of Riley’s jam-packed screenplay forgivable.
Sorry to Bother Youwill open in the Bay Area on Friday, July 6th.
